FILM companies and investors abusing a State tax relief scheme have been forced to pay back €4.5m to the Revenue Commissioners as part of a clampdown on a scam that has cost the taxpayer more than €23m.

Screen Producers Ireland (SPI), the representative body for film and television producers, today announced the appointment of a new chief executive and a new chairman following their recent AGM.

Screen Producers Ireland has called on Irish television broadcasters for increased support in 2005, accusing them of acting like Scrooge with Irish films.

Screen Producers Ireland (SPI) has expressed its disappointment that no additional funding provision for TG4 was made in today’s Budget.

ADDITIONAL funding for the Irish Film Board is needed if the country’s movie industry is to attract new productions.

The Irish Film Board needs funding of €2m a year to support film-making in Ireland, the Screen Producers Ireland (SPI) said today in their pre-Budget submission to the Government.

THE Government should increase funding for TG4 by €14 million a year to €44m by 2008, a new report recommends, or risk more job losses in the Gaeltacht areas.

The Government must increase funding to TG4, the country's only Irish-language TV station, or risk putting independent producers out of business, according to a new report published today.

Screen Producers Ireland has given a positive welcome to the cabinet reshuffle announced by the Taoiseach today.

A little slice of the Big Apple came to Dublin today as a film shoot transformed part of the city into a New York streetcape.

The Irish film industry is at increased risk from global competitors and its problems must be urgently addressed, it was claimed today.

Screen Producers Ireland (SPI) have said that it is a tremendous achievement for Ireland that the film In America, produced and directed by Jim Sheridan, has received three Oscar nominations.

Screen Producers Ireland (SPI) has welcomed Charlie McCreevy’s decision to retain Section 481 until the end of 2008.

Screen Producers Ireland (SPI) has welcomed the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance assertion that its final report will recommend retention of the Section 481 tax incentive for the film industry until the end of 2007.

IT was a case of “lights, cameras, political action” as many of the country’s best-known film stars turned out yesterday to lend support to the campaign to retain tax incentives for the Irish film industry.

Ireland's most prominent and successful film writers and directors have added their voices for the retention of Section 481.

FILM producers have warned that the Government risks decimating the home-grown industry if it scraps tax breaks for movie-makers.

Nearly 80% of film production work in Ireland will cease if the Government removes the Section 481 tax incentive by the end of 2004.

Ireland's position as one of the top six preferred locations in the world for moviemakers will evaporate if the Government goes ahead with plans to remove tax incentives for the industry.

Irish film industry representatives have called for a 10-year extension of existing tax breaks to protect the industry from decline.